‘What Comes After’ was one of the boldest, and frankly most creative episodes in the history of The Walking Dead. The show was so cleverly written, and promoted — we all thought Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) was going to die. We saw the glimpses of his delusions, we read about the rumored cast returns, and we all knew Lincoln was leaving the series. Rick Grimes had to die, right? Had to!
But, at the end of the day, Rick was spared and in a twist of fate, Jadis (Pollyana McIntosh) saves his life. We were also treated to a rumored, but still surprising time hop. As an episode, it probably would’ve worked a little better if more focus was put upon Rick. The Jadis story was essential, but did we really need all the focus on Maggie, Michonne, and Negan? (We didn’t, but turns out we did, and we’ll discuss that in a bit).
Andrew Lincoln turned in a tremendous performance, and the same can be said for Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurrira, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan — who nearly stole the whole episode.
‘What Comes After’ is a good episode. Hell, it’s a really good episode, especially since this season has been absolutely boring, meandering, and dull season to get through. However, there were five really big mistakes the series made in this episode, five mistakes that really hurt not only this season by future seasons, and series of The Walking Dead.
1. This Should’ve been a Mid-Season Finale:
The placement of this episode was and is weird. Rick’s departure is a major moment in series history. Even though Rick didn’t die, the consequences are still massive. Having this conclude a season gives the audience time to fully digest the idea of Rick being gone. It would’ve also aided the new direction of the series — particularly the jump into the future. The trailer for the next three episodes would’ve served as a great tease for the new half-season. The twists like the “evolving walkers” and the “talking walkers” (which I believe is just humans dressed like walkers) need time to marinate in people’s minds. Instead, we’re thrust right into it. We have no time to process, no time to live in the moment of such a big game-changing ending. Now it feels more like a hard reboot instead of a new chapter.
2. The Quiet Exit of Maggie
Outside of the news of the Rick Grimes starring Walking Dead movies, the hot story coming out of this episode is this was Lauren Cohan’s final episode for quite some time. It’s staggering how the media had to break this story, and it was not even remotely apparent she wouldn’t back in Episode 6.
This is another reason why ‘What Comes After’ should’ve been a finale. We’d have an excuse for no Maggie, because it was a new half season. Instead, in typical Walking Dead fashion, we have her muttering a few meaningless words (the scene where she kills the walker is absurd), and then *poof* she’s gone. It’s probably frustrating for the creatives in the show to deal with her quasi-departure, but just brushing this all under the carpet is just bad writing. Give us some clues in that time hop that she’s not there. We’ll probably get some ham-fisted exposition telling us where she’s gone, and it’ll be laughably bad.
3. Future Judith
Holy jump the shark, Batman. This was just absolutely ridiculous. Judith’s got the accuracy of Tom Berenger in Sniper. She has a mini kitana blade like Michonne. She’s wearing Karl’s hat. And she’s carrying a pistol, like her dad, which is the size of her entire lower torso. Give me a break. “My name’s Judith…Judith Grimes.” Oh man, just shoot me at this point.
4. Missing Memories
There were a number of emotional, and clever moments during Rick’s flashback scenes. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who popped when Rick a girl with a blonde ponytail — an obvious nod to Beth (Emily Kinney) or any of the other corpses strewn about Rick’s mind. The reunion with Shane (Jon Bernthal) was a great moment — and we finally saw the admission by Rick that Judith was Shane’s daughter. The reunion with Hershel (the late Scott Wilson) was tremendously poignant. However, it’s when they got to Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) that something didn’t ring right. Yes, Sasha was an emotional part of the series — but if you’re really going for the emotional gut punch — where’s Carl (Chandler Riggs), or Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies)? Or what about Glenn (Steve Yuen)? Or even Andrea (Laurie Holden)? Those characters were integral to Rick’s character. Sasha…not so much.
5. Three movies?
If you love The Walking Dead, you’re stoked about this. However, there lies the problem. This is just exciting the show’s already dwindling fanbase. Even though Rick’s death/departure was hyped all season long, it didn’t move the ratings needle that dramatically. While this series is the only thing that does big ratings for AMC — I don’t see how producing not one but three “big-budget” TV movies based on Rick Grimes is going to change anything. This show was an absolute ratings phenomenon. Now, it does fine. It loses to the NFL every week in the ratings, but just got check the ratings from season to season and the interest in this show is waning and more content based in this world is not going to change that.
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